The vibraphonist leading an outstanding trio session with Johnny Dyani and Leroy Lowe. Ace versions of Equinox and Body And Soul, and six chewy, moody originals.

Fat, glorious mid-seventies South African afro-jazz classic from the vaults of As-shams.

The house drummer of the Flamingo jazz club throughout the fifties, presenting a 1961 date featuring Tubbs and Jimmy Deuchar. Vibes-player Bill Le Sage leads the gorgeous ballad World Of Blue.

With Jaki Byard, Richard Williams, and Elvin Jones at Van Gelder’s in 1965 — a wildly brilliant mixture of homage and experimentation, New Orleans manzello, noise, Middle Eastern vibes, modal grooving… Unmissable.

Raw, blue, and sensational, with Kirk playing the tenor sax, manzello, and stritch simultaneously. Originally released by King in 1956, entitled Triple Threat.

A quartet featuring Andrew Hill, stretching out on selections from Kirk’s recent LPs Domino and We Free Kings. The original WKCR-FM broadcast, properly restored and remastered.

From one of his most creative periods, leading the Vibration Society — Ron Burton, Dick Griffin, Jerome Cooper and co — through one-of-a-kind, freewheeling, radiant wonders like The Inflated Tear (about his going blind) and Volunteered Slavery. Stevie’s My Cherie Amour pops up, trailering next year’s Blacknuss LP.
Kirk called it all ‘black classical music’.

Originally released by Gallo in 1974, this is a raw, impassioned, stunning set led by bop pianist Kirk Lightsey (a regular sideman for Chet Baker) and saxophonist Rudolph Johnson (from Black Jazz), on a break from touring South Africa with Detroit crooner Lovelace Watkins.
A heavy-duty excursion into post-Coltrane spiritual modernism, ranging from the modal, cerebral intensity of the side-long title track Habiba, to the downhome breakbeat groove of There It Is, and the dark glitter of minor-key waltz Fresh Air. Long one of the most desired global jazz LPs, and never before available outside South Africa, Habiba is a forgotten masterpiece of its era.

Improvisations on the organs of three English churches: John the Baptist in Snape, St Edmond’s in Bromeswell, and the Union Chapel Church in Islington, London.

The Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu — ‘dazzling’, says Herbie — alongside US guitarist Ben Monder and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari for his ECM debut, combining a jazzy lyricism with a classical sense of form.

With David Finck and Joey Barton, and Joe Lovano guesting.

Encapsulating the culmination of a joyously ambitious twelve-day jazz project mounted in 1978 at the ancient amphitheatre Tasso della Quercia, in Rome: the collaboration (in different group configurations) between key Italian avant-gardists like the saxophonists Tommaso Vittorini, Eugenio Colombo and Maurizio Giammarco, trumpeter Alberto Corvini and trombonist Danilo Terenzi, together with visiting players such as Steve Lacy, Steve Potts and Evan Parker, Roswell Rudd, Frederick Rzewski and Noel McGhee.